After reading several reviews, I was a little apprehensive about seeing Atonement. I was prepared to see a drawn out, boring love story, but I actually didn't feel that the film was boring at all. The film is stunningly beautiful and the acting is top-notch.
As others have mentioned, there is a bit of jumping around in time and the movie doesn't exactly progress in consecutive order at all times, which I found to be unnecessary. Also, I don't think the love story is developed enough. I just didn't feel that attached to the couple. Definitely not sappy enough to be considered an epic love story.